How to keep caulk fresh

 How to keep caulk from drying out.

This trick works with latex type caulk in the plastic tubes. Simply find an old 5 gallon paint bucket..... and put your various types of latex based caulk in the bucket with a damp rag. A sheetrock bucket is a little short but it'll work if you don't put your caulk gun in the bucket with the caulk. Put the lid on and it'll be good the next time you need it. If you do lots of home repairs like I did you use a lot of different colors but don't always use them up. With the bucket trick you can put all your caulk in one place, it'll stay fresh and you can keep the caulk gun in the bucket too. Save Cash! The damp rag will provide a little moisture to keep the latex caulk from drying out in the bucket. Remove the rubber from around the lid and it'll be easier to remove the lid if you're busy caulking frequently. This is called the bucket trick.

     See how you can put almost a dozen tubes of caulk and the caulk guns in there too. Even the damp rag you can use to help smooth out caulk lines and keep the tip of the tube clean! Find these empty paint buckets at new construction sites. Ask the painters if they have any empty buckets you can have.

    Never throw away a half used tube of caulk again!

This trick will not work with silicone caulk or caulk with paper tubes. If you have caulk which is not latex based (many are petro based) and you want to keep it fresh - do not put a nail in it. It will not work well. Instead take a plastic grocery bag and wrap the whole tube up in it making sure you wrap the tip nicely.  This is called the bag trick. In my experience though silicone caulk products don't last  long no matter how you store it but the bag trick does as good a job as any of those commercial products.

Blue Palmetto Home Inspection serves the entire Charleston Lowcountry area!